The State of Music in the Mainstream!

The Golden Miller

I read alot of opinions on how people view music these days, and the reasons they give as to why original music by original bands is pretty much dead, well in the mainstream anyway. And it's baffling the extent as to just how many people don't know why it disappeared. The mid 00's was the last generation of real bands dominating the mainstream, Razorlight, Keane, Franz Ferdinand, Kooks, Killers, Libertines, Bloc Party, Kasabian etc etc. Then the free downloading started. Anyone over a certain age could download for free.

These bands made their money, but it's the next generation it's effected. The way it works, is radio stations give airplay to what sells. The only people buying music by the end of the 00's was basically 15 year old girls, not knowing how to download. Bands coming through couldn't sell music, therefore get no airplay and exposure, and we've seen the results since. People try to give all these other reasons, but thats what happened.

You then get the brigade who say your just grumpy, that everyone says "music was better in my day". Thats a moot point here. It implies there's actually bands in both generations to compare. There simply isn't any in the last generation. Then you'll have the lads who say there's still bands there, you just have to look for them. Maybe so, but you shouldn't have to. Up until circa 2010, yes there was always manufactured pop acts, but half the chart also included real bands.

Without real bands, original acts and songwriters getting nationwide exposure, idea's can't be pushed forward. The last 14 years has just been regurgitated throwaway music. What classics from that period will still be around in 30 years? We all want real bands to headline festivals, not one modern band big enough to play slane, formed after 2010. How long can we keep wheeling out the same acts? Slane for example, used to be for the biggest new act of the day, now we can't even find one band to fill it, pop acts being put on stage. Post Malone and these lads starting to headline festivals. The festival season is now about what bands are coming out of retirement each year.

It's hard to know where music goes from here, it's in a very bad way. No Paul Heatons, Damon Albarns or even Noel Gallaghers coming through, writing original music. The concept of 4 lads picking up instruments, with fresh ideas, seems gone. Music once captured the imagine, Blur and Oasis, and general gossip and feuds, was always interesting if nothing else. Now music isn't even a topic in any sort of discussion. It's hard to see how it comes back, to the forefront of people imagination's, or what needs to be done

pgj2015

Bands wouldnt be my area really these days as im more into other genres of music but what about the likes of Fontaines D.C.? They seem like an original band who are decent and are very popular.

magicbastarder

What's changed? One big thing is the way music is 'consumed'

Maybe the rise of streaming services, and the collapse in income from actual sales, is playing a part. A band who would have been moderately successful in the 90s would have made a lot more money than a similarly popular band today. And with a band, where royalties could be split 4 ways that simply might mean they're not willing to put the graft in with no guarantee of payoff?

PP Lee

There’s still some really good indie and electronic music being made if you look for it although a lot of music in the mainstream is pretty dire. Mumble rap has to the worst genre out there at the moment. All autotuned, and the “artists” resemble mentally ill drug addicts with their tattooed faces and fake diamond studded teeth.

fitzparker

Because of streaming laziness has set in, everyone trying to make a quick song to get it out to stay relevant, and the end product is regurgitated shite, there is nothing original, but the teenage girls lap it up (exactly who its market is aimed at)

A funny story happened the other week, my brother and myself manage an underage girls team and had a few of them in the car on the way to a match, they asked for a song on spotify and then it shuffled. I mentioned to him if he noticed how many songs were just remixes of older songs (when I say older these songs were still big 15 years ago) as spotify shuffled to the next songs we counted 6 in a row that was just shite lazy lyrics over an old beat, for example (gangsters paradise, Blue dabba-di-dabba-do, tipsey, what is love (haddaway)

I'd expect it from new pop artist trying to get a 1 hit wonder, but some of these are by big names just trying to stay relevant, but being lazy and selling out doing it i.e Tiesto and David guetta…. these lads are around 20 + years they aren't short of a penny or their diary full with gigs.

magicbastarder

in the 60s, it was very marked how many of the hits were covers of songs which had only been out a year or two anyway; that's not changed.

but one thing that has measurably changed is how long it takes for the lyrics to kick in after the song starts - that's been getting shorter and shorter in order to prevent shuffling.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176536#Comment_122176536

And Gangsta's Paradise was a remix of Stevie Wonder's past time paradise, and maybe Stevie stole that from Weird Al's Hamish Paradise.

ruth...less

Ye. I myself am pretty much running out of songs at this stage 🤣😂🤣

ruth...less

Good music and crap music were both able to share the mainstream (obviously there was always more obscure stuff on the side aswell). It created an interest for everyone (a comradery and a competitiveness) in the same thing but also allowed people to feel individual through their taste.

Sometimes great songs or fun songs overlapped and everyone enjoyed.

It allowed people to still express themselves through their music taste and feel part of something or a side of music that represented them. You can't really express your identity through music that no-one else around you ever hears...it's hard to have a conversation with someone who never ever heard of your band etc.

thereiver

Its hard to make a living as a new 4 piece band ,many small venues are closing, those venues were the places where bands would start off get attention and experience playing in front of a small audience.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/jan/24/over-a-third-of-uk-grassroots-music-venues-are-loss-making-charity-finds

most of the money go,s to A list artists or classic pop groups from the 90s, 2000,s from streaming and touring. new bands rely on tik tok or youtube to get a hit and reach a wide audience.

https://info.xposuremusic.com/article/music-industry-report-2023

Maybe young people have less money to spend on music with inflation and expensive rental costs.there seems to be less original songwriters appearing,

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/ninorino/various-lady-singers-songwriters-in-the-years-2000-to-2020/

just go to youtube and type in hits from the 90s,

or hits from the 2000,s and you,ll find a wide range of good music to listen to from a wide range of singers or pop groups .

Most people think the music from their youth was better , when you are under the age of 20 music is very important to you and has a powerful effect on you.

i don,t listen to music radio i have never heard most of the songs in the top 50

i mostly look at music videos on youtube .

maybe i,m biased ,i think in the last 5 years the standard of lyrics in pop music has fallen .

i don,t have mtv or vh1 on my tv

the 90s was the peak time for the music industry in regard to revenue when people bought cd,s just to listen to one hit song

then napster came along and young people realised i can download any song i want from the web and burn it to a cdr disc or onto an mp3 player.

theres still plenty of original music being made, apart from remixs of old hits.

i think theres plenty of good quality new music since 2014,

eg beyonce, lady gaga,billie eilish ,taylor swift,dua lipa, etc

ruth...less

Why did MTV stop playing music?

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122179817#Comment_122179817

Reality tv killed the video star.

Strumms

look at one of the most successful gimps now who has come on the scene… Post Malone…. A fella who charges people into ‘live’ gigs, just to watch him lip sync……a throughly disingenuous see you next Tuesday… charging 60 plus euros into Irish gigs, just to see him there with that looper grin and freakish expressions on his ugly mush while making a fortune off people whilst not being arsed actually singing.

Kids are ok with that now, can you imagine years ago, if that happened…. The artist would not escape the venue without a police or security escort . ⚠️

Paying 60 plus quid to look at this cûnt..gurn and mime for you with added acted out insincere affectations ….no thanks,

when kids expect little from the industry, they’ll get SFA…

L1011

Your definition of "real band" appears to be entirely based on "uses guitars".

ruth...less

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122179879#Comment_122179879

I know but why? They got more viewers for the shows I guess and just ran with that.

What was that show on network 2 on Saturday mornings Dave Fanning was it ? Always liked that on Saturdays, felt like the weekend was beginning.

Jack Daw

I would argue a large part of the problem is there is no money to be made from making an album anymore as you can stream them immediately for almost nothing so physical copies being sold are minimum.All the money for artists todays comes from concerts.

In order to listen to an album the music itself has to be excellent and you have to like the music for the music's sake whereas you can attend a live show and enjoy it even if you don't really like the music because attending a concert is an experience in and of itself and not purely about the music as it is as much if not more about the spectacle and level of performance rather than how good the music is.

By destroying musicians ability to make money from just creating great music it means there is less incentive to create great music.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176617#Comment_122176617

Other one is that songs have gotten shorter generally, average at about 3.5 minutes. Spotify etc is less likely to recommend a longer song. So I think the algorithm definitely can negatively impact things like sitting down and choosing what to listen to. It's probably been happening to some degree since shuffle and mp3 players but Spotify probably accelerated it a bit further.

But honestly, it's probably a matter of actively engaging and choosing what you listen to. I can think of loads of great acts that I love listening to. Anna Calvi, Kneecap, The Smile, The National, Lankum to name a few and plenty of the super acts like Beyonce are superb singers. Music is still great if you put in the effort.

magicbastarder

it's also worth noting how much easier - and cheaper - it has become in the last couple of decades to make music in your bedroom. you don't need a bassist or drummer in the way you used to, to make music.

my wife did music in trinity in the late 90s, part of which was music technology. about ten years ago, a friend (who used to work professionally in a studio) showed her what he could do on a computer - she was impressed, what took her a week to do back then, he could do in probably ten minutes on the computer; and as mentioned, that was ten years ago.

Anesthetize

Music in the mainstream has always been in a state, for decades. Alternative music exists for a reason.

bodhrandude

I heard a rap version of the Genius of Love from the Tom Tom Club on the radio the other day that was unrecognisable, Tina Weymouth's vocal removed completely, I was not impressed. It reminded me of Black Eyed Peas mullicating The Police song Every Breath you Take.

_H80_GHT

I see the horrendous music as just another telling indication that this current young generation is the worst one yet. By quite a distance. They really are just the worst and their music is just a reflection of how bad they are.

ruth...less

Another thing is (not the main reason but just an outsider up the side)...that people are way more educated now or are bombarded with more information early on..when a reasonably intelligent artistic angsty teenager...who could have wrote beautiful confusing music in an attempt to sort out their feelings...feels emotional...they now turn to social media for 'advice' or for information... or a rebellious person who is angry at some unjust situation is not channelling that into art (or a different kind of 'art') but stuck in some debate online trying to be heard through likes and ❤️'s to get their point across...

nigeldaniel

I liked it when musicians did not lip sync to computer generated sounds. Nothing will ever outdo a drum and bass blasting away with a high tuned guitar. Nirvana singing lithium is doing the rounds in my head right now.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122183778#Comment_122183778

people your age run the music industry. not the kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afam2nIae4o

nullzero

The biggest indictment of modern popular music is how dull it is.

At the very least there should be an element of chart music that makes the older generations at bit uncomfortable.

It's all a bi boring.

bodhrandude

One just needs to look at the recent Electric Picnic line up announcement, Noah Kahan, FFS and Calvin Harris as the late night DJ.

lawred2

At this stage music is ai produced. Sure how many songs did Taylor swift just do for a recent album!? Over thirty or something. It's too easy at this stage to make big money. Why waste time and energy on new talent?

Bobson Dugnutt

Middle-aged men giving out about modern music while rating the music they grew up to as the best ever created is a trend as old as recorded music itself.

Still huge amounts of top class music being released. The lads giving out about modern music while adoring tedious dad rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd is the worst of all.

magicbastarder

maybe the kids don't want to listen to dad music. or create it, either.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122186711#Comment_122186711

...

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122186690#Comment_122186690

Yeah, everyone knows that Zeppelin and Floyd are tedious and never did anything as interesting as Imagine Dragons or Coldplay.

I get the whole point about older people being down on new music as a trope but in all honesty I remember my own parents and those of my friends being open to or actually fans of the contemporary bands or acts in the 90's. Good music is good music.

The problem these days is that the industry has been ruined, algorithms identify music that matches what is already popular and dictates what get attention.

Is good music still being made? Sure it is, but there's less of it and there's less incentive for people to make music because if it's not algorithm friendly it gets ignored.

Bad music has always existed, not everything was great back in the day but music was a broad church for the decades from the 50's to the 00's and there was something for everyone.

One of the biggest problems I have with music today is that trends have tended to take a long time to change. What's popular now would not sound out of place ten years ago.

Imagine in all music tin the 90's sounded like music from the 80's? There were constant changes and music evolved naturally, these days it's all the same all the time. But yeah, middle aged men listening to Zeppelin are the problem.